7 bizarre tales of people coming back from the dead

Funerals are supposed to offer a chance to say goodbye. In recent months, though, a number of stories have emerged around the globe of people who were thought to be dead, but awoke — in a coffin or a morgue — after being declared deceased. Sometimes, the resurrections last only briefly, as happened in the most recent case involving a toddler in Brazil. Some of the resurrected, however, get a lasting new shot at life. Here, seven strange tales of people rising from the great beyond:

1. The Brazilian toddler who died twice Not all resurrections end well. A heart-wrenching case in point: Little Kelvin Santos, 2, died last week — or so his parents were told — while being treated for pneumonia. The child’s devastated family held a wake through the night. Then, an hour before the funeral was to begin, Kelvin sat up in his open coffin, and said, “Daddy, can I have some water?” People started screaming. “We thought a miracle had taken place and our boy had come back to life,” the boy’s father, Antonio Santos said. “Then Kelvin just laid back down, the way he was. We couldn’t wake him. He was dead again.” The family filed a medical malpractice complaint, and police are investigating.

2. The Yemeni man who awoke in his grave A 65-year-old heart attack victim in Yemen had been washed and wrapped in special cloth, according to Muslim tradition. Mourners had placed him in his grave, and were preparing to cover him with dirt, when the man suddenly came to. He was not amused. “You want to kill me and bury me alive,” he shouted, according to the Alettejah news website. After the shock wore off, mourners gave the no-longer-dead man fresh clothes, and turned the funeral into a party.

3. The stillborn baby… who came to life Argentinean mother Analia Bouter’s baby was declared stillborn after an emergency C-section in April. Bouter and her husband, Fabian Veron, never got to see the body before it was taken away, so they went down to the refrigerated morgue, where the baby was being kept in a drawer, to say good-bye. They opened the drawer, and Bouter said she “felt” the child looking at her. She touched the newborn’s icy hand, and saw that the baby was alive. She fell to her knees, and the baby let out a faint cry. The parents named the baby Luz Milagros, or “light,” “miracles.” The child is still alive, although doctors have said she has irreversible brain damage.